Grit Lab Report

Hi Isobel,

Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!

We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.

We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.

Important note!

Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.

If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.

Okay, let’s get started!

The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.

We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.

Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.

The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.

Regarding passion you picked .

Regarding perseverance you picked .

As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.

Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.

In week 2, we looked at your interests.

Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.

Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.

Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.

In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.

You said your top three values were NA, NA, and NA.

You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.

When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was agreeableness.

You said your top three talents were social, kinesthetic, and verbal.

We then talked about goal hierarchies.

You said you had a general intuition (but nothing specific yet) about your top-level goal.

We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.

A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to run a half marathon .

Here is how self-concordant that goal was:

Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.

It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!

Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.

We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:

Work Smart

In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.

You WOOPed!

For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said Make lunch for day .

For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said Saving money! Feeling healthy .

For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said Food trucks .

For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: When I finish dinner I will meal prep my lunch for the next day .

Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.

And here’s how much you learned

These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.

The important thing is that you learn something along the way!

In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.

You shared you’ve done daily practice in Soccer .

We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.

In week 8, we discussed feedback.

Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!

You said you felt hurt when receiving critical feedback, and hurt when receiving positive feedback.

We then turned to learning about stress.

In week 9, you reported feeling a moderate amount of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being writing my sisters college apps .

We also talked about adversity and failure.

Although related, adversity and failure are different:

Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.

However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…

Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.

And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.

We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.

Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.

You describe the habit you chose as Health .

Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.

Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?

So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.

In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.

Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.

Here’s how you described them:

You also wrote a gratitude letter to Parent .

In one word, you said it made you feel Grateful .

One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.

… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.

Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.

Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?

Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.

That curiosity makes you smarter
Kobe: live every day as if you're the 12th player on the bench
Grit scale is months and years
Not all positivity … need some healthy realism too - awareness of obstacles
Deliberate practice is much more important than "innate talent"
Feedback is in for on past performance, feedforward is about future
Stress can be enhancing
Don't use willpower!
Giving or matching is better than taking!!!

In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.

Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:

Ivy Deng
Isobel! Sweetest girl ever. You are such a shining light. You light up every room and bring such joy and kindness to every room you are in. You are funny, and make the group feel like a safe space. Your discovery project was hilarious and inspiring. That photo of your failed noodles was incredibly funny. But you improved so much! You inspired me to cook more. Previously I never thought I'd be capable, but after seeing your progress I realize I am!
Farheen Shamdasani
Isobel, I wouldn’t have wanted to experience Grit Lab sitting next to anyone else. I have appreciated the little moments the most: our pre and post-quiz freak outs, silly side conversations, and deciding whether we want candy that Tuesday. Your stories never failed to make us laugh, and you were always so thoughtful during group discussions. Grit Lab aside, I think your kindness is one of your best characteristics. You’ve taught me that life is meant to be approached with spontaneity, an open mind, and a ton of hard work. To say I am grateful to have gotten to know you would be an understatement (how cliche, but it’s true!). I am so proud of how much your cooking skills improved this semester! I am also a huge fan of fresh and nutrient dense food, and your final meals looked delicious. The way that you reflected on the setbacks you encountered and your steadfast determination to get better is admirable. I also thought the way you piggybacked this goal with your interest in running was super smart! I hope you had a big celebratory superfood meal after completing your half marathon!! I’m excited to cook with you—maybe we can add garlic sesame noodles to our supper club menu?
Jules Bach
Isobel has been an excelllent member of our group, consistently infusing the team with her positive energy and proving to be an effective discussion leader. Her optimistic approach has been a driving force in keeping us motivated and her ability to facilitate inclusive and engaging discussions as a team leader has significantly enhanced our group's dynamics and productivity. In her cooking discovery project, Isobel impressed me with her humility and openness about her initial challenges. She candidly shared her early failures in the kitchen, which not only humanized the learning process but also showed her resilience and determination to improve. Her journey from those early setbacks to mastering complex recipes was inspiring. It was particularly admirable how she embraced her mistakes as learning opportunities, demonstrating that success often comes after overcoming obstacles. This aspect of her project resonated with me deeply, highlighting the importance of persistence and humility in any learning endeavor.

We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.

Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?

Drumroll please…

Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.

In any case, grit is not built in a day…

…remember that progress is never smooth…

…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.

With grit and gratitude,

Angela and the Grit Lab team.